Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above.
You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed.
To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Saw a video for this about a month ago and was semi-impressed. The combat itself was interesting (cover system), but more alluring was the off-mission depth – the base, facilities, soldier customization. After watching some Yogcast videos this past week, my semi-impression finally evolved into full-on desire. To flank and kill and upgrade.

Imagine my surprise that the game is available on consoles. The irony being, if it was available on Mac I'd much much rather play a turn based strategy game on my computer than with a freakin' controller (This is rare). Alas, it is not to be. I dl'ed the demo and the console controls are as... unwieldy as is to be expected, but actually taking control of the game versus watching a video just grew the hunger.

So, any Master Racers around here playing this? Consolites? I'm debating whether to order it off amazon and save $10 versus just going to Walmart tonight and picking it up. The urge is that strong. Also, if this is as good as it seems, I could see myself double-dipping if this were to come out on Mac later on.

I played a smattering of the original XCOM whenever it came out, mid-nineties some time. I have been eyeing this and hoping for a Mac version, which seems likely given that it is Firaxis making it, and all their games have come to the Mac eventually, but one never knows. It is a genre that has been almost forgotten, and I think they view the XCOM remake as a trial balloon.

Playing a game like this on a console seems about as awesome as that Starcraft version for the N64, where the two-player game was split screen.

The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.

I played a smattering of the original XCOM whenever it came out, mid-nineties some time. I have been eyeing this and hoping for a Mac version, which seems likely given that it is Firaxis making it, and all their games have come to the Mac eventually, but one never knows. It is a genre that has been almost forgotten, and I think they view the XCOM remake as a trial balloon.
Playing a game like this on a console seems about as awesome as that Starcraft version for the N64, where the two-player game was split screen.

Well the timeline was 2k announced they were making an XCOM shooter, internet boos, 2k announces, here ****ers, have your shitty XCOM turn based shooter then, it'll just fail. XCOM comes out gets rave reviews, everyone loves it. Up yours 2k.

I hope you're right. I'm big on consoles and minimal on PC gaming, but this is the epitome of something I'd rather play on my mac. I hope you're right in the ling run (assuming I'm still playing).

Managed to finally get this last night. The customization appears nerfed compared to the PC videos I saw but not the big stuff I was worried about (Name and Head).

Had some trouble deciding what difficulty to do it on. I can't recall doing much turn-based strategy, but I'm not a video game noob and consider myself rather sharp. Second, I have decent knowledge of the game going in thanks to watching some videos. On the other hand I didn't crush the demo and I have to assume it was probably on easy or normal.

They patch made easy easier, but I decided that since I'm new to the genre and this game is supposed to be notoriously hard I'd go with easy. Not regretting it in the early going and apparently I can change the difficulty later on.

Hooboy. So I had a few close calls last night. Was semi-reckless with a character and he got critically wounded (instead of killed) the next turn. I had three turns to revive him. I get someone there on the last tun and I remember that they can't revive with a medpack, they need a specific skill. So I'm ****ed. Then the last person on the turn kills the last alien, ending the mission and saving the character. Wow.

So I'm playing on easy, and the battles aren't impossible, but I'm certainly impressed that the amount of enemies doesn't seem very low. If anything, I'm guessing easy just means they're slightly less aggressive or accurate.

In the end, while I'm holding my own in battles, I've completely effectively botched the management portion of the game. I had read about how you should make satellite building a priority in the NeoGAF thread, and while I took that to heart by clearing space that was the wrong route. I'm already pretty ****ed two months in. Satellites take forever to build (two weeks, along with the facilities), so you really need to start building them Day 1. This kind of feels flawed as a game mechanic.

So it looks like I'll be sadly abandoning quite a few great characters to start from scratch. On the bright side I now have a crash course on part of the classes and abilities to strengthen my next playthrough.

• I like the game, but I'm playing it very strangely thanks to the customization aspect. Not looking forward to beating the game at which point I assume I will no longer be able to go on outings with the crew I've become attached to. Strange situation.

• At some point I put 5 people on overwatch because I spotted some aliens on the other side of the door. Alien makes his move and because of the layout, all 5 soldiers all pop up in unison and blast the little bugger into the finest of vapors. I was laughing for a while.

• The variety of weapons and armor is somewhat surprising, even if some clearly outrank others.

Since I'm a noon, I'm playing on easy. I've read several horror stories about the game on Classic difficulty, plus there's ironman mode. This game can be downright cruel, all you need to do is adjust the setting to your desired experience.

I'd say what made the game difficult was how rigorous of a simulation it was.

In one sense, it's actually pretty easy. All you need to do is apply coherent small-unit tactics.

What makes that difficult in the game is the same thing which makes it difficult in real life. You need to keep your cool and be patient when someone is trying to kill you. It's even worse during terror attacks because the longer you take the more civilians who get bagged.

I've run into many a "Why did I do that" from rushing into an area I felt certain was clear only to find the Army of the Damned waiting for me. Or had to slow pace to make sure everyone could keep up or could get to tactical cover in case of an encounter.

Trying to capture live specimens adds another level unto itself. You need to wound/weaken the alien but not kill them. Then, someone is likely going to get wounded (and be out of commission for a short while) in the time it takes. I had to kill several aliens I was trying to capture because they kept turning members of my team against me.

IIRC, it was 16, however that balanced perfectly with the tech tree and the adversary level.

In the early stages it's 16-on-one, and you need them all.
As they ramp up the numbers, you have more effective weapons.
As they make the aliens more dangerous, it should be at the time you get armor... for some people.
When the aliens are one-hit-kill, you should have flying armor... for some people.

This is just basic game balance, but where that came out in each stage was the perfect point. Do it right and you won't get slaughtered, but you will lose one or two squaddies you were attached to.

Part of normal play is your squaddies getting killed. They're not all supposed to get back. That's a big part of the attachment. The ones who do get back survived the crucible, which makes it even more heart-wrenching when their number comes up on a later mission. It's especially brutal if one of your favorites turns out to be susceptible to mind-control. At best, you discharge them. At worst, they're sitting in the middle of one of your fire-teams and open up on full-auto at close range.

The cherry on top is you have to capture a mind-control alien to get the tech which lets you see a squaddie's susceptibility. If you don't get your hands on that, then there's always the chance it would just happen.

Jumping back quickly to the "rigorous" aspect, how the churn affects you is based on how much of your resources you apply to your military. You can't have just 16 squaddies and hope for the best. You had at least another 16 in reserve. Hopefully more to cover for wounded squaddies recuperating, or if your base got attacked while you had a squad out on a mission. You'd rotate squads so they'd each build up skills.

To be clear, I really dig this sort of shit. It's not everyone's cuppa.

This may be better on a PC, but the cutscenes are ugly. I get the impulse to do them in-engine, but I would have vetoed that idea.

They use what seems like the exact same sound effect for "footstep on metal", which pleasantly tapped the nostalgia button. In the original, the squaddies were deployed from inside the Skyranger, so you (ideally) had 16 sets of boots walking across the exit ramp at the beginning of every mission. That sound got burned into your brain.

While the engine isn't up to snuff to pull of a cutscene, I think it looks great for the game itself, however on the iPad, the UI for zooming feels really janky. It also likes to interpret attempts to drag the view around as dragging a move around.

I'm only a few missions in to my "official" game (had to do two or three dry runs to get the hang of it), but there seems to be acceptable levels of difficulty on normal. Part of the difficulty is coming from more aliens, which is fine, but part of it is coming from the wonky action point system. I don't like the lack of a "shoot and move" option.

Good to know I need to concentrate on satellites for the management portion.

No spoilers. XCOM 2 is a sequel to the most common result of playing XCOM - that you failed miserably after about five missions or so and ragequit. The aliens take over, and now you're the resistance.

XCOM 2 is great because they have tweaked everything that needs tweaking from the original, while tension keeps going up in the campaign. Every new alien introduced is there to trash your most likely strategy up to that point, and as soon as you've figured them out, here comes another. IT never gets boring the way these games tend to get after a while. I have not played the new expansion yet, but what I played before was great.

The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.

The trick about XCOM is that you are generally never under time pressure. Take it slow, move people up together before you send someone forward to trigger the next pod. XCOM 2 changes this so you are frequently on a timer, but as I recall, you can usually take it slow in XCOM.

The strategy side of it I hardly remember. Get the squad size upgrades, get the armor upgrades, keep checking in at the OTS for nifty upgrades.

The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.